A very sensible solution. And there's no reason a Direnni lord can't have an escape tunnel.

Besides TG quests there should in general for these ruins be several quests with Direnni Altmer asking the player to retrieve a family heirloom or a secret book that only they know about. Sort of reminiscent of the Falmer-interested Altmer on Solstheim.

What kind of enemies should be found here? I think at least one of the towers should be occupied by common bandits. I know Luxray's tower (Ruin B?) is supposed to be shut off since the Direnni lost it.

Well, the tileset is challenging to work with, but very rewarding as well. It's high modularity makes sky the limit. I agree it looks like a promising start, it's great you are going with the "stair-y" feel from the exterior, that would make a fitting palace for Altmer noble mage. Maybe let's have some upper rooms require levitations - not as a result of being ruined, but as a concious call from builders of this place?

What kind of enemies should be found here? I think at least one of the towers should be occupied by common bandits. I know Luxray's tower (Ruin B?) is supposed to be shut off since the Direnni lost it.

I always imagined this building to be the most desolate of all three - stairs leading up to it are ruined, and the gate is still locked (and trapped, IIRC, though that can be always changed in it's exterior of course). Maybe no enemies at all, or a lich that used to be a lord here, with a company of conjured daedras? It'd be a good place to use some common data daedras.

I'd rather see Reachmen marauders in these ruins at any rate, rather than bandits though - this place is far from any major road, it rather belongs to a savage domain of the tribes already, either people of Braig Cnoss or these mystical quirks from the valleys below, Crann'lorg I believe.

What do you think about that idea to have Direnni lich sorcerer still living here? Sometime after the fall of Hegemony, he became a lich and locked himself away from the world, destroying the stairs leading up to his pallatium. For centuries he's been devoting himself to magical studies, accompanied only by fellow undead and conjured daedras. The lich himself would have a study in the dome, and daedras/lesser undead would roam around the building. Reachmen of Bnaig Cnoss could spread rumours about dark power dwelling in old ruins of their late overlords, too, for the simplest quest hook for a player. We could also use a boss-like figure in the release, I think.

That would leave us with overall plan for inhabitants of Mirilstaren interiors:
1. first building - lich and his servants
2. one of other buildings - Reachman marauders?
3. remaining building - ???
4. basement - ???
5. escape tunnel - spikeworms

Worsas, great job on the shell here, by the way. At first I was terrified by how ambitious that layout was, but I'll try to follow your work here.

A lich sorcererer hideout sounds great. I'm excited to see where you'll go with this.

My thoughts/input: Lots of differences between a Lich hideout and a Necromancer/Warlock hideout. Don't overclutter it. Stick to Altmer furniture, skulls, soul gems, enchanted items etc, lots of spell scrolls and a few Direnni tomes (no newer books). No need for candles either, but possibly magic blue flame and atmospheric lights. Bones, skull piles, webs, etc. All that stuff, but not anything that makes the study seem too human. I imagine that when you're a lich, several hundred years can pass by while you sit and medidate on a magickal theorem. Furniture arrangement and daily affairs become rather mundane and pointless by then.

I think the building Luxray is making (the guard/barracks interior) is to be completely empty, sealed off by self-locking doors when the Direnni left. Possibly a few ghosts roaming around.

Great, thanks! I started doing some work on this earlier this day, and I think I catched the vibe you described. Behold a study of Celarmo Direnni, mage-lord of Mirilstaren!
http://i.imgur.com/kEkNXAH.pnghttp://i.imgur.com/UEacLE1.pnghttp://i.imgur.com/b2KkA7l.pnghttp://i.imgur.com/cldViPl.pnghttp://i.imgur.com/Te71zpP.png
I'll replace the books with scrolls, blank scrolls and more (soul)gems. Only after doing some work here already I realised with Direnni dating all way back to the First Era it wouldn't make sense for actually any of our books to be here - but I think some Ayleid scrolls wouId work well here, given mutual Ayleid-Direnni connections? I'll probably cut down on the number of items too, you're right an undead, and an Altmer sorcerer in addition, wouldn't need much to "live". The chain experiment will go too, I don't want this to be too different from the rest of Direnni domes.

I had an idea the lich could send his wights to steal some books, always craving more and more knowledge (that would make a cool fairy-tale like story around local folks I figure; he could even end going toes-to-toes with Azra because of that, when his skells tried to rob the Shadowmage), but I'm not sure. For now I'll just let this idea float around and remove the books to make it lore-friendly for a generic Direnni dungeon.

We can place Aladoer's book somewhere here too, probably not in the dome chamber so it'd remain a low level quest, but in some other rooms.

I think the building Luxray is making (the guard/barracks interior) is to be completely empty, sealed off by self-locking doors when the Direnni left. Possibly a few ghosts roaming around.

Sounds good, I'd go with the same for the basement level as well. The Lich and a hostile mini-tribe would be enough for ruins this size.

I'd remove some of the clutter on the table, like you mentioned. Less is more, and we shouldn't try to show things 100% realistic and overclutter. Go for atmosphere firstly. I think Luxray is a great example of the less is more idea, his interiors are usually the least cluttered, but they work great and have a good atmosphere and are very detailed at the same time. The guard barracks interior is a good example of this. I tend to overclutter as well sometimes, going through some of my own interiors in Karthwasten, I have deleted a lot of unecessary stuff here and there.

Stuff like wine, farm tools and too specific stuff like repair prongs should go. Really it should be a very limited range of items in these kinds of ints. Repair prongs would be fine for a regular Necromancer lair.

The pillar with the blue flame looks like an ideal location for a skullpile.

Not too sure about those chains, but experiment away and let's see where it goes.

Placing one of Aladoer's books is definitely a good idea. Another one is in the possession of a Warlock in the tunnels beneath Karthwasten.

Resize the Magus Console slightly, so the lich can see the buttons/star system.

The lamps on the side of the bookshelf doesn't work IMO.

Flowers in this interior kills the mood big time for me. But the setup is cool I wonder if we could transfer this to another int?

I don't care much for those magic crystals. I only think they should be used (sparingly) in caves, like vanilla.

I'd like to see how this looks with more of a blue tint than the current green. Not changing it too much, just more of a blue hue to the current light settings.

Here's an update, the first one and probably the last one before it's mostly finished. Not everything is done, but layot outlines for both levels are here already. I haven' addressed all of roerich's points yet, but I'm uploading this already as I feel I'm about to start "overberrying" it, and could use some third-party voice of reason I'll focus on fixing bleeding/missing architecture, and not cluttering it (other than webs, those are still amiss, and they'd help creating the atmosphere a great deal I'd wager), a quantity of loot to be found here is huge already.

Temporary entrance to this dungeon is located by Eldafire's house in Seyda Neen.

The pillar with the blue flame looks like an ideal location for a skullpile.

Well, it was supposed to be an enchanted fireplace, for alchemy, since we don't have Direnni calcinator/retort, so it wouldn't be very practical with a skullpile in it. I've added some ablaze skulls to some other areas, though.

Flowers in this interior kills the mood big time for me. But the setup is cool I wonder if we could transfer this to another int?

I can see where you're coming from, though I'd still opt to keep the alchemy garden - Direnni invented alchemy, after all, and the lich was accustomed enough with maintaning Magus Console to keep the garden maintained after their fall. Maybe it'd help if I replaced flowers with more grim plants? I liked the contrast here myself, felt very Mer-ish, but I understand other would argue it's not really appropriate for a lich. At any rate, feel free to steal the setup - I can see it working well in Elfstone Keep in particular; in fact, it was your Elfstone's courtyard that was my inspiration here.

Let me know how you feel about it!

Edit: ah, and don't mind the bookstands with frozen fishes... I was doing some makeshifing experiments there myself.

Regarding the stairs leading to the bottom grate in sky_int_direnniruin_02A where you are looking down to telvanni crystals. Would it be possible to add something of interest there? Maybe a small room following after the bottom grate with something to find in it? The whole left wing seems a bit wasted right now despite the nice-looking crystals.

Optionally I've been thinking you could look down to a part of the underworks instead of looking at crystals that have no apparent purpose.

Phew, I'm glad you like it. Nevertheless, I decided to remove some makeshifting here myself. This can be considered finished now, though I might have still left a caspering ceiling beam etc here or there (it's sometimes tricky to tell with this tileset), so let me know if you see one. I think people with hardcore arachnophobia will hate me for this dungeon, by the way.

Regarding the stairs leading to the bottom grate in sky_int_direnniruin_02A where you are looking down to telvanni crystals. Would it be possible to add something of interest there? Maybe a small room following after the bottom grate with something to find in it? The whole left wing seems a bit wasted right now despite the nice-looking crystals.

Following your advice, eventually I created a narrow tunnel going above the doors, joining crystals with the bookcase alcove in front of it. I also gave backway entrances to both middle level rooms, leading to said crystal/bookcase alcoves, so the whole thing became a nice passage now.

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The underground level is underdeveloped on purpose - I figured I'd better leave it raw until we start working on the basement joining these buildings with each other and the tunnel; then we'll have better image what we'd like to achieve here.

Cellnames are "The Reach, Mirilstaren: Pallatium" and "The Reach, Mirilstaren: Pallatium Dome".

edit: I realised I forgot the NorthMarkers here... they should be added with proper values when we'll be merging this with Skyrim_Main

Note: Please don't use the finished cell names before the cell is merged. Let's stick to one system, so it's easier to manage which cells have been merged and which hasn't. Optionally put them after the Sky_ filename, like "Sky_iRe_DH07 Mirilstaren: Pallatium"

Edit: This is all looking great. A classic dungeon crawl interior with good reward and a challenging boss. Masterfully executed and showing all the best of the Direnni set. I have a few objections/notes, but they can be handled in a review. I still want to trim the clutter a few places, trim the number of Welkynd stones, etc. Still not sold on the alchemical garden either. Also we need to downsize the number of baddies here, it is way too crowded atm. But the NPC'er can handle that, I guess. I think Daedra here was a good choice of enemies.

I hope my continued criticism isn't obscuring the fact that I absolutely adore this interior. This is the kind of dungeons we need more of, and I really think you have outdone yourself with the atmosphere here.